The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3

In these provocative award-winning tales intersecting sexuality and identity, a third-world fashionista masters the Internet, an itinerant poet collaborates with its eight selves, a four-way marriage flouts social conventions, and an ugly duckling is reinvented as a compromised swan. You will be subverted and you will like it.

The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3

In these provocative tales intersecting sexuality and identity, a third-world fashionista masters the Internet, an itinerant poet collaborates with its eight selves, a four-way marriage flouts social conventions, and an ugly duckling is reinvented as a compromised swan.

The James Tiptree, Jr., Award is an annual literary prize for speculative fiction that explores and expands gender. The Tiptree Award is named for one of science fiction’s most brilliant writers, Alice B. Sheldon. Sheldon, an ex-debutante turned CIA operative, wrote for ten years as the enigmatic James Tiptree, Jr., until her true identity was uncovered.

“A dozen award-winning and short-listed pieces probe the boundaries of sexual identity in today’s world and in imaginatively rendered futures. Nalo Hopkinson recounts the macabre fate of a superstitious man’s third wife, who mistakenly becomes pregnant. Ursula Le Guin fashions a world in which marriage involves four bisexual partners and predictably complex interrelations. In honor of its namesake, the volume includes Tiptree’s brilliant ‘The Girl Who Was Plugged In,’ envisioning a future in which advertising is illegal, and remotely manipulated starlets push products using their celebrity alone. While some selections focus more on racial concerns than gender issues, the resulting collection is both entertaining and thought-provoking.”
—Booklist

“The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 is absolutely recommended for everyone who is interested in a wide range of fantastic fiction with a taste for the experimental.”
—SF Site, featured review

“And lo and behold, it is quite brilliant.”
—Strange Horizons

“I had so much fun escaping into the short stories in this collection of SF…. As I read this book, it seemed as though the stories just got better and better.”
—BookLoons

“This is science fiction, speculative fiction, weird fiction, and fiction that will take you places you thought you were not meant to go.”
—The Agony Column

Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith are the editors of the James Tiptree Award Anthologies. They are members of the Tiptree Motherboard, a volunteer organization that administers the Tiptree Award at Wiscon, the annual feminist convention in Madison, Wisconsin. The Motherboard won the 2011 Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service to science fiction. The Tiptree Award was created by Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler and has been given since 1991 for “works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one’s understanding of gender.”

Praise for The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1

“Here’s what the critics had to say about The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1: immense, surprising and utterly delightful.”
—SciFi.com

“A superior array of creative and thoughtful writing for both genders.”
—Booklist

Praise for The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2

“An excellent volume of superior prose that is both intellectually and morally challenging.”
—Booklist

“…the contributions demonstrate a rare gift for interpreting an issue in new and surprising ways.”
—Library Journal

“Imagination blends with science and politics in the second collection offered by SF’s most daring award.”
—SF Site